This Mirror Isn't Big Enough For The Two Of Us
by CharlemagneGrey
Summary: A very dark gaze through the looking glass. The Battle of Witzend. What made Hatter the Mad Hatter. The White Queen births an evil that threatens to exploit her true self.  White Queen/Hatter White Queen/OC   Alice/OC  Rated M, Saucy and Gruesome
1. Chapter 1

The White Queen could almost see them smiling in their shadowed darkness. How many times had she been faced with this test? Her decision on which way to bend her morality. Her decision regarding peace and self sacrifice, over tyranny and blood on her people. One moment, Tarrant, her royal hatter had been beside her. And she had been watching him- _As you have done a lot of lately- _She was just being introduced to his youngest sister when almost literally all hell broke loose.

The screams and smell of burning flesh. The images of the good people of Witz End being slaughtered earlier that night under Iracebeth's command. The attack she surely _planned_ to steal her crown in. Well, you've got your wish sister, Mirana thought bitterly. Arrangement's were hastily made to lay Mirana's dead husband, King Luciem, to rest early tomorrow. She would prepare a speech, say a lot of things she really didn't mean, and shed a few false tears over his stiff corpse.

In the end she couldn't really feel he 'was a great loss' to her. Or that she ever 'cared for him deeply.' Their partnership was strictly for the good of the kingdom, and though no loving bond came out of their marriage, she was still silently shocked at her own emotional deattachment when one of the red soldiers, of clubs or perhaps of spades, she cannot remember, charged the king down, knocking him of his horse and then proceeded to disembowel him on the ground with his apparently very sharp spear. Again, she knew those must have been direct orders from her sister, from this day declared by herself as The Red Queen. Some ruler he was, she mused. Trying to escape at the first sight of gore. Coward.

All the time. Constantly being nagged and prodded by the slithering creatures that crawled in the shadows. The pulse from inside beating against her insides in time with her fluttering, sickly sweet, eylashes. Day and night, of course. At times the desire to give in to the darkness inside, that swam within the marrow of her bones, became far to strong for her to ignore. True to her vows, she would never harm a living soul, she thought to herself as she made her way to her chambers alone. Her own, however, that had lost it's innocence and is of darkness, was on the platter.

Mirana drew the razor, tiny, tarnished, and a tad dull, over her left hip. Fascinated with the thin consistancy of her own blood. The other now. It's sharp sting felt so much better than those fake smiles. Not as good as sin. This was a sin, yes, but not nearly equal to the crimes she would have been capable of, had she, like her sister, bent her will to darkness completely.

Mirana made that famous decision herself. One of the few choices in which she had a say, before she became queen that is, was that she would not make the same choices as her sister, Iracebeth. She had made this choice when she was very young, somewhere between childhood and adolescence, and still pure, clean, and innocent.

Her decision became redefined and was given the bitter coating of permanence the day she was chosen to rule.

- five years ago.

At the time of the crowning, Iracebeth, who had screamed and wailed, far pass the alotted age for screaming and wailing, was beyond enthralled to finally rule.

Mirana stood beside her that morning in the throne room, awaiting her sister's impending delight. The two sisters mimicked their parents, quiet and reserved, but only princess Mirana was truly distant. She stood in a dreary state, she watched everyone around her, a seperate being from her sweetly sixteen year old body. She heard every word around her, but never from her own voice. She thought she was too young, she knew that she had no voice to be heard. In her mind she was playing her fears of what Underland would be under her sister's rule.

It was quite much like staring into a looking glass, as they faced their parents, aged and sitting in their thrones. Mirana had taken after their mother, with matching luminescent skin and deep brown doe eyes. Iracebeth inherited the king's high eyebrows and bad temper.

When finally the news came, that the King and Queen of Underland had decided that Mirana would marry, The White King, Luciem, and together, they would rule Underland.

To say the absolute least, Iracebeth was unhappy with their verdict.

But it was pure wrath in her shreiks that filled the Castle of Crimms when she protested at their plan. That combined with her recklessly chosen words.

Mirana herself was a frozen ice sculpture. It was all happening so fast. First, she was going to be married. Soon. Too soon, to King Luciem, whom she only knew by reputation.

Second, she, rather than her elder sister, would be Queen. Ruling Underland, she mused, not one book in the library can teach me _that _instruction in few days.

Coming ou of her mind and back into the moment, the King was trying to explain his reason to them both while Iracebeth paused.

"You act on selfish desire too often, Racie! When you are upset you carry on thrashing about like this!" He threw his arms up.

"Have you ever once seen Mirana act out like this?" tried the Queen.

In the silence that followed from her sister, whose face was reddening to match her hair, Mirana thought, no. No she hasn't. But she does not know how much I wish I could.

Mirana turned to face her sister, who she felt watching her. To the King and Queen, they may have seen Iracebeth give her sibling a hateful look of loathing, instead of apologizing or dignifying her with anything else.

But the truth behind this look was for only Mirana to know and understand. The eyes that, from childhood, has for her into a held tongue and many a undeserved scar.

To take the blame for Racie's wrongdoings. Until she learned to avoid her at all costs.

The glare was from Iracebeth. The eyes like black pools that had given the illusion of long, black, inky, arms stretching and reaching out for her, was from the Darkness.

_You are the same. You feel us. Stop pretending._

And Mirana knew that was true. Every sharp pair of scissors she held, all of the times she watched the training army gaurds in amazement, as the soldiers swung and slashed with their maces and swords to bring down the straw filled dummies. She wanted to give in, but to give in to some of those awful thought she had, would only make her another victim of the Darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

Beneath the rubble of what was once the happy honey-smelling home of the Hightopp clan, lay a mad, once smiling and futterwacking, hatter, who was feeling the absolute worst pain of his entire existence.

Absolem watched from afar, keeping look out for any remaining attackers while also scanning the grounds for survivors. All the while, Absolem was aware of Tarrant but chose, out of deepest respect, to leave him to mourn his losses. Murky greyish smoke from the dying blazes hung about in the air, forcing it's adamant reminder of the past.

Tarrant's mind was lost. He couldn't find it. He was face down in what was the wet, muddy, ashes of his deceased families home. The home in which he was born and raised was burnt to the ground by the card soldiers. It meant nothing to her, that he knew. He knew that Iracebeth had a knack for seeing tragedies of others as tribulation.

He heard her.

_A strong and terrible odor penetrated Tarrant's nostrils. He heard her laughing in that low rumbling fashion so perfected by those who have practiced evil with such polish. The smell was absolutely noxious, the smell was that of human flesh burnt, or roasting lamb chop, or something thereof. He hated it. Tarrant began to turn his head and tried to stop himself. Sound and pain he could endure but this smell was disgusting. Tarrant let himself turn back finally. Mirana's absent gaze met his red glowering eyes. Tarrant let his eyes close for a moment, forsaking the dancing flames surrounding._

One would have considered the hatter very luck to have survived the raid, but he did not did not think this was remotely true.

The Hatter could still feel the touch of his youngest sister, Maggie. A ghostly weight of her light, warm hand in his. Or rather he thought he did. In a rush of desperation, Tarrant turned his head to the side and looked beside him.

No. No Maggie. Of course. She's dead. All of them are. To think that you could hold her is a mad thought on any account because they burn the limbs with the heads and bodies.

Then another mad, grotesque, thought. Part of him was glad that the Red Queen had ordered to burn the bodies, because the image of himself trying to piece together little Maggie, awkwardly attempting to fix her head upon the stump of her neck, all to have it roll and tumble onto the ground, reminded him of his late friend, Humpty Dumpty.

"_Now, now!," The knave shouted over the riots,"What has happened to our pretty composure?"he sneered. "We are a weeping 'Hatta' now are we not? That is what your Alice called you, Hatta, no? The knave pulled Tarrant's arm, and with the other hand attempted to smear ashes on him._

The hatter's attention was caught by a tea cup trying to skitter past him.

An odd thing for it to do as it was china.

Being in no mood for foolishness, he slammed his hand down on top of it, which resulted in a squeak, which lead it to flip itself over and pour, not tea or a beverage of any sort, but a frazzled, tired dormouse.

The mouse did not cover her head and cower however. But glared the defeated looking man in the face.

"I don't care WHAT your purpose! IM GOING TO SKIN Y'LIVE! YOU JUST WAIT!"

The hatter didn't respond, but held the mouse up by the tail and observed absently how she wriggled and gnawed at the tips of his mercury stained fingers. Eventually the fierce one-way battle was given up. And the dormouse limply hung upside down, her anger fading into frustration. "You killed all'ov'me fam'ly and expect me NOT to fight!"

She was inaccurate, but she did have a point.

The dormouse went from suspended by Tarrant's thumb and thimble to a powdery landing in a pile of ash.

Hatter laughed with so much misplaced joy, he seemed to frighten the remaining trees of the Tulgey wood into shaking.

"'AY! WUSSA PROBLEM!" The mouse squeakily shouted over his peals of laughter.

The Hatter's eyes shifted from a watery violet to a sparkling bright green. "How could I have _ever_ forgotten!" He folded his arms over his stomach trying in vain to cease his completely insane giggling.

"What've you forgotten?"she asked with annoyance.

"Revenge of course!."


End file.
